An obsolete Australian common name for the koala, reflecting early European settlers' attempts to classify an unfamiliar animal by analogy with known creatures. The koala is not a bear at all but a marsupial, and the name has long been replaced by 'koala' in all standard usage. The term survives only in historical texts and early colonial natural history writing.
Early accounts described the native bear as a slow-moving, tree-dwelling creature that rarely came to ground.
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An old Australian term for the koala, now obsolete but historically common among early European settlers who didn't know what to call the unfamiliar marsupial. The bear comparison made sense visually — round ears, stocky build, tree-dwelling — even though koalas are marsupials and bears are placental mammals. The term faded as koala became the standard, but native bear survives in historical texts and colonial-era writing.
The settler's journal from 1842 described spotting a native bear asleep in a eucalyptus near the creek.
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(Australia, obsolete) A koala.
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Add your own interpretation of "native bear".
Regional slang from around the English-speaking world — British, Australian, Irish, Caribbean, Nigerian, Filipino, AAVE, and the hyphenated-English dialects that make the internet sound local.
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